


The Jeffrey Parable

by SGreenD



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Abed is his usual perfect meta self, Drama & Romance, Dreamscapes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Happy Ending, Jeff Winger Has Issues, Jeff confronts his issues, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon, the stanley parable - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SGreenD/pseuds/SGreenD
Summary: This is the story of Jeff-and-Annie. It starts with a funeral. Then a flashback. Then, a dream. Then, a happy ending. Abed finds it all rather unoriginal, but he's still happy to be there.Featuring a no-nonsense Annie, a midlife-crisis-riddled Jeff, and Abed as his spiritual guide.(And so many references to movies, TV shows, and other works that I was too lazy to tag them all.)
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Comments: 15
Kudos: 144





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning ahead: this is weird. I write weird stuff. But this is Community, after all, so weird is probably what you're looking for.  
> The first chapter is depressing, the second one is not, and the third one is happy.  
> Enjoy.

Part 1

They are sitting in the hotel lobby. Abed is decidedly not an expert in reading a room’s atmosphere or judging the tragedy of a funeral on a scale from one to ten, but somehow Pierce’s death seemed a lot less tragic than this. Probably because of the sperm.

Now, there is no sperm involved. Troy is sitting next to him, doing a thing with his face that Abed has learned expresses something akin to “I kind of wanna cry, but also, I don’t?” that Abed has seen a lot of over the years, usually when they are watching the final minutes of the final episode of a TV show. Abed has always assumed that this means that Troy just hates endings, but that may not be the whole story. Or maybe it is. Funerals indicate endings.

Jeff and Annie are sitting across from Troy and Abed, and Abed sensed something was off the moment they entered the hotel together. The way they carry themselves, standing close together but somehow simultaneously far apart, is screaming season 2 Jeff and Britta when they were pretending not to sleep with each other, but with Jeff and Annie, it has always been different. Jeff and Britta were the true Ross and Rachel, the Will-they-or-won’t-they couple that is annoying as all hell and may still somehow end up together against all odds. Jeff and Annie, on the other hand, are more like Sam and Diane. They may, but they don’t, but then they will, but then they won’t, but maybe at some point. They never arrived at that point in Greendale. Annie left.

Abed keeps staring at them, undeniably curious to find out whether his suspicions can be solidified. Jeff sighs.

“Abed, stop staring. It’s rude.”

Annie looks up quickly, unaware of the attention.

“I know it’s considered rude,” Abed says. “I don’t know how to stare with subtlety.”

“So look at the floor,” Jeff says.

“Like you and Annie?” Abed looks between them. “Both of you were looking at the floor in favor of looking at anyone in the room, or at each other. I assumed that looking at the floor indicates either shyness connected to the inability to meet someone’s eye, or sadness. But there might be another possibility I didn’t factor in. When you spilled your secrets after we crashed with the hot air balloon in season 4, none of you would look at each other, either. Is that it? Are you embarrassed? Did you spill some secrets under the influence of psychotropic drugs again?”

“No, Abed,” Jeff says. He sighs heavily. Abed thinks he looks tired. “It’s just sadness.”

Annie looks at him then, and her face does something weird. It looks sad, but not necessarily. Unfortunately, Jeff is looking at the floor again, so he does not see Annie’s face. But Abed is positive there is something else going on. Whatever has happened before they all came back together for this sullen occasion, it has happened between Jeff and Annie, and that has great dramatic potential.

“This calls for a flashback,” Abed murmurs. Troy looks up.

“What’d you say, buddy?”

“Flashback.”

Troy shrugs. “Sure.”

*****************************

When Pierce dies, none of them are heartbroken. Pierce was a homophobic, racist, misogynist dick with gross habits and an even grosser vocabulary. Still, he was part of the study group, and a part of the group disappearing disturbed Jeff. So when Troy leaves, it disturbs Jeff a lot. The only one more upset than Jeff is Abed, Jeff is sure of it. Of course, Jeff can’t show how upset he is, because what kind of a man would he be? He and Troy were never even that close. They didn’t have too many storylines together, as Abed would say.

Somehow, Jeff deals with his anxiety, because at least everything else stays the same. Mostly. But when Shirley also leaves, Jeff knows that things are falling apart.

See, Jeff Winger has always prided himself on being strong, independent, quick on his feet, always ready to cut his losses and move on. The truth is, he is none of those things. Six years at Greendale Community College (“You’re already accepted!”) have made him weak, codependent, slowed him down. These years, and the connection he forged with these people, have made a side of him resurface he has tried burying so deep under a mountain of lies that it would stay hidden forever. The pills-and-scotch incident may or may not have been accidental. (It was an accident. Kind of. Maybe.)

Jeff Winger hates change. If he had a say, things would always, always, always stay the same. Rationally, he knows it is impossible, but emotionally, he just wants Greendale to stay Greendale. The study group is the study group is the study group. Always. A rose is a rose is a rose.

When Annie and Abed leave, Jeff is completely torn up. He is forty-one and teaching law at the worst community college in the entire country, and all of his friends are leaving him. Sure, Duncan stays, and so does Frankie, and so does Britta, because Britta is the worst and therefore incapable of graduating or maintaining a job that is not bartending. But they are not a community anymore.

Jeff attempts to deal with these changes and the constant anxiety for about six months before he decides he needs to cut his losses. He does have a law degree now, after all, even if it is from Greendale. He even has teaching experience, as long as nobody inquires exactly what his teaching entailed. So he looks for jobs across the country, and as it happens, the Bergen Community College in New Jersey calls him back. They have some vacancies in the Criminal Justice and Legal Studies department, and someone with more than a year of teaching experience would be very welcome. The Dean throws a tantrum when Jeff tells him he wants to leave, but in the end, after some dramatic hugs and some hands on his butt, he writes Jeff a raving recommendation and sends him on his way with the promise of keeping in touch. Duncan slaps him on the shoulder.

“Getting out of here, are you? Good on you, Winger.”

“Yeah,” Jeff says. “Good on me.” He is not convinced.

Britta smiles at him when he and Duncan are having a farewell bender at her bar. “You’re getting out of here, Jeff! Finally! Why so sad?”

“You’re the psych major,” Jeff mumbles into his whiskey. “You tell me.”

“Well, obviously you’re riddled with separation anxiety because your father—”

“You know what, don’t tell me.”

Britta pulls a face. “Look, I know you miss Annie and Abed, but maybe it’s time to move on. The only reason you enrolled in Greendale was so you could continue your life the way it was before. Be a slimy, lying lawyer again.”

“And look how well that worked out.”

“So you’re teaching law now, and maybe that’s a good thing,” Britta says. “Being a lawyer wasn’t doing the best things for you, but teaching made you pretty happy, didn’t it?”

The thing is, though, that what made Jeff happy, what made Jeff stay, was the group. Britta and Annie and Abed, and Shirley and Troy. Maybe Pierce (but let’s be honest, not really Pierce). Now that only Britta remains, he is not happy at Greendale anymore.

“You know, Britta, maybe you’re right,” Jeff says slowly. “Maybe it is time to move on.”

Britta grins. “See? I do have the right major.”

Jeff inspects the ice cubes in his glass. “What about you? No separation anxiety?”

“Nah. I’m not really the type for that. I wish you all the best, though, Jeff. Keep in touch, don’t be a stranger.”

Duncan drops him off at the airport two days later. “You know, Winger, I think I may miss you just a little,” he says as Jeff hoists his designer suitcases (two of them) out of the trunk of his car.

“I bet. Who to drink and watch soccer with now?”

“Oh, me and Chang have been getting along lately.”

“Really?” Jeff squints at Duncan. “How come?”

“Oh, you know.” Duncan shrugs. “I figured after Annie with the boobs left, it wouldn’t be long until you sorted your shit out and went looking for other opportunities, so… I made the decision to cling to whoever will have me. And Chang isn’t exactly the most popular guy, considering he attempted to turn the school into a dictatorship and all that, so—”

“Wait, what does me leaving have to do with Annie?”

“Well,” Duncan looks confused. “I kind of thought you and her—”

“There’s no me and her,” Jeff says. Something in his chest hurts when he says that. He chalks it up to separation anxiety (shut up, Britta) and checks his phone to avoid looking at Duncan.

“Okay, alright. Anyways,” Duncan says.

Jeff clears his throat. “So, I guess…”

“This is good-bye.” Duncan offers him a hand, and Jeff makes the abrupt decision to pull him into a hug. They do not really have that kind of friendship, but right now Jeff is clinging to Duncan the way Duncan is clinging to Chang: the way that someone clings to a life raft when they are lost at sea, because there is nothing else to hold on to.

***

Once in New Jersey, Jeff needs to get used to an environment where people are actually expecting him to teach and know stuff, so he has to work very hard. At some point, he just starts presenting his students (who are so, so, so startlingly young) with old cases of his. This turns out to be a great tactic. On the one hand, he manages to provide real-life evidence that he has actually worked as a lawyer, gaining respect in the process, and he needs less time to prepare the lessons, because he never forgot any of his cases. He won all of them.

There are downsides and upsides to his new, stressful work regimen. On the downside, Jeff has to tone down his drinking. No more scotch in the teachers’ lounge, no more scotch in class, no more scotch in the bathroom. Abed would have been happy with the TV drama cliché of the teacher with an alcohol addiction that he needs to hide from his colleagues, but Jeff is not a cliché. Well, he is. So he tries not to be. He tires himself out in the gym trying not to be.

On the upside, having a busy life leaves him with less time to think about himself. Less time to question whether he misses Greendale, or what the hell he is doing with his life. And, most importantly, it gives him barely any time to remember that he is only a five-hour-drive away from Washington, D.C.. Pushing all of these thoughts away at night, the only time in his day when he has any time to reflect, is difficult, yet manageable—but this one thought always weasels its way into the forefront of his mind.

Only five hours. That isn’t much.

Jeff barely manages to keep in touch with anyone. Britta told him to not be a stranger, but Jeff is basically a stranger to himself nowadays, now that he doesn’t drink, doesn’t lie all the time to avoid working, doesn’t consider his dress choices and the amount of attention people pay to his body more important than whether the students in his classes listen to what he has to say. Now that he doesn’t… have An… a certain person. Around him anymore. The only one he actually keeps in touch with is Abed, who sends him long, convoluted emails about everything from his daily routine, to how Britta has managed to screw up lately, to what Buzz Hickey has for breakfast. (He even kept in touch with Hickey, Jesus Christ.)

Through Abed’s emails, to which he barely replies, Jeff also knows that Annie is still in D.C., that her internship has been prolonged, that she may stay there if she keeps up the good work, that she is very happy but that she misses all of them, even the Dean. And she’s only five hours away. Jeff is only five hours away from her.

Getting his life together in a foreign town, with a new job, surrounded by strangers, is complicated and tiring, and Jeff’s days are busy, he’s always surrounded by people. He has discussions with his students and superficial small talk with his new colleagues, and harmless superficial flirts with girls at coffee shops, so it takes him almost three months to realize that he is lonely. No one here knows him and he doesn’t know anybody. He hasn’t been hugged in three months. That farewell hug from Duncan at the airport had been the last one. Jeff intimately remembers his last hug with Annie.

God, he misses Annie. So. Much.

Jeff realizes this late one night when he’s sitting at his old desk that came with the apartment, preparing for his next work day. Or when he should have been preparing for his next work day. One of his students, one of those overly motivated girls from the first row, has attached a copy of “Howl” to her latest writing assignment, with a comment that she found it very inspiring. Jeff has absolutely no idea what Allen Ginsberg has to do with law, but he gets lost reading the poem that he hasn’t laid eyes on in twenty years or so.

in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

With a jolt Jeff realizes that it is Friday night and he won’t be having lessons until Monday morning, so now he has a whole weekend of nothingness in front of him. It’s Friday night and instead of partying, he’s sitting at his desk, working and reading an old Beat poem, understanding that he is completely, utterly, unadulteratedly, ALONE.

Tight pain starts in his chest and shoots right into his head. Maybe New Jeff is grieving for Old Jeff. New Jeff is sober and has a normal job, but he has nothing else. Old Jeff may have been a functioning alcoholic, but he had friends, people who cared about him, who knew him inside out, his good sides as well as his bad sides, and accepted and loved him, with all his shortcomings. Basically, Old Jeff had everything in the palm of his hand.

Jeff abruptly stands up and throws the poem away. Old Jeff would have done something drastic, like jump into his car and drive the five hours to Washington right this second. Drive through the night and knock on Annie’s door and tell her how much he misses her.

New Jeff, however, is different, he doubts. Does Annie even want to see him? Does she care? What if she turns him away? Annie is beautiful, smart, passionate and compassionate. She probably has a boyfriend. What would she want with Jeff now? Also, where the hell in D.C. does she live? Granted, it’s not a huge place, it wouldn’t take that long to find her, maybe a week. But New Jeff is a coward.

Jeff takes a deep breath and wipes the tears off his face. Get realistic, he tells himself. Even if Annie has a boyfriend now (and she certainly does, she must, who’d say no to Annie?), she’s still Jeff’s friend. Yeah, okay, they haven’t talked in ages. But Annie is kind and at least she used to care about him, so she wouldn’t turn him away.

Just maybe not do it at night? If Jeff left now, it would be about four in the morning when he got there, which would be weird. Also, Jeff is feeling his age creep up on him, he is tired and unsure whether he still has the stamina to stay awake and alert that long.

Browsing through the long list of Abed’s emails, Jeff finds Annie’s address. He’ll go see her tomorrow. He will do that. He has to. Old Jeff is dead and New Jeff is dying and this can’t continue, because Jeff is losing his mind.

***

So the next morning, Jeff rolls himself out of bed through sheer force of will. He hasn’t slept more than three hours. His arms feel heavy. His legs feel heavy. His head feels heavy. His back hurts. He pushes himself through a punishing workout routine and starts feeling more aware when he steps out of the shower and can hear the coffee machine sputtering. His apartment seems impossibly small for a moment, but he takes a cup of coffee and his fiber-rich cornflakes with low-fat milk to the balcony to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, that only serves to remind him of how incredibly alone he is, looking onto the numerous other balconies surrounding the four squares of backyard they all share. There are people sitting on their balconies, couples, families. Jeff is alone.

He hops into his car at 8 am. He types Annie’s address into his satnav. It has been eleven months since he last spoke to Annie.

On the road, 90’s music blasting from the speakers, Jeff realizes with a start that he must look like shit. Sure, he’s not drinking, and he works out a lot, but he also doesn’t sleep much, and it shows in the circles under his eyes. There are more wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, and he has stopped plucking out the (thankfully scant) gray hairs he finds on his head or in his beard. Right, he also hasn’t bothered to shave in weeks, so he has a full-on beard going. He looks, quite frankly, old. He looks like a middle-aged community college teacher who sleeps too little and worries too much.

And Annie? Beautiful, young Annie? She’s gorgeous, always has been, always will be, but she is also so young, young like his students at Bergen. She hasn’t had time yet to become jaded and frustrated and tired. She’ll turn him away immediately. No, Jeff thinks. I’m coming to see her as a friend. She won’t be interested in me like that. Not anymore. This stupid little crush she had must have died in D.C. when she met new and interesting, not pathologically-codependent people and met handsome guys her age to fall in love with that weren’t shallow and jaded. Annie must have a boyfriend who will still have the desire to change the world and the energy to try it.

Ultimately, then, Jeff decides to stop worrying about his appearance. It’s Annie, and she’s his friend, and just because he misses her like he has never missed anybody or anything, that doesn’t mean he is in love with her or anything or that she has to still be in love with him. If she ever even was. It was more of an infantile infatuation, anyway. He just has to see her as a friend because he is lonely and he needs friends. Anybody. Even Duncan would do. Shit, he’d take Chang if that was all he could get. But D.C. is just a lot closer to New Jersey than Colorado. It’s a matter of convenience that he goes to see Annie, that’s all.

And then suddenly, the five hours have passed, the tinny voice of his satnav tells him that he has arrived at his destination, it is past noon and the sun is shining and he is in Washington, D.C., in the street parking his car in front of the building where he knows/thinks/hopes Annie is.

Jeff tightly grips the steering wheel and closes his eyes. Just for a moment, he indulges the idea of doubt again. This was a mistake. She won’t be there. It’s Saturday, midday, she has plans, probably. Maybe she is grocery shopping with her boyfriend. And if she is there? She won’t want to talk to him. Jeff hasn’t reached out to her because he is shit at making friends and even more shit at keeping them, but Annie hasn’t tried to reach him, either, and that can only mean she doesn’t want to see or talk to Jeff at all, and yet here he is, having driven all the way here without announcing himself like an idiot.

This is one of those moments in life where one has to plunge into the abyss of the unknown. Jeff hates these moments.

Taking a deep breath, he gets out of the car.

He shimmies into the building when someone leaves.

Apartment 3B, that’s where Annie is.

He finds the right door. It is white. Just another normal door.

Jeff stares at the door for an indeterminate amount of time. What if someone is watching him? Probably calling their nice young neighbor to let her know there is an old creep standing in front of her door. Jeff shakes his head. Plunge into the abyss. Come on, you can do it. It’s too late to reconsider now, anyway.

He knocks on the door. It seems more appropriate than a doorbell somehow. More personal.

Silence.

He thinks he hears steps.

Movement behind the door.

Locks being turned, chains being pulled back. The door swings open and—

“Did y—”

Annie breaks off with a gasp and covers her mouth in shock.

“Uh… hey, Annie,” Jeff says, trying for a winning Winger-smile.

“Oh my God, Jeff!”

Annie almost tackles him in an enthusiastic hug, and Jeff hugs her back. It feels so good. Jesus Christ, he can feel tears pricking at his eyes. He immediately lets go and blinks quickly, but Annie hugs him for a few seconds longer before leaning back and looking at him with big eyes, smiling.

“Jeff! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in almost a year!”

“Yeah,” Jeff says. “I guess that’s kinda why I’m here. I, uh… I missed you.”

“Oh,” Annie nods. “I know, right? I missed you, too. I miss all of you, Abed, Britta, Troy… why don’t you come in?”

As Jeff steps into the apartment and starts taking stock of the place, Annie keeps talking.

“Abed writes me these really long emails, and we talk on the phone every other week. I got a letter from Troy last month, that was so considerate of him. But I haven’t talked to Britta in a while. Are you still keeping in touch with them?”

“Only Abed,” Jeff says and can’t help but look for signs of cohabitation. Just friends, he wants/needs to remind himself.

“Yeah,” Annie says with a fond smile. “He’s just very insistent. Do you want something to drink?”

“Water.”

“Sure.”

Jeff stands in the hallway kind of uselessly, unsure of what to do with himself while he hears Annie fill a glass with tap water somewhere in the apartment where the kitchen must be. It looks comfortable in here, with white walls and a fluffy carpet in what seems to be the living room area that is the color of eggshells and looks expensive to Jeff’s skilled eye. Annie returns and gestures to the fluffy sofa in pastel blue.

“Sit, get comfortable.”

“Sure,” Jeff says.

He takes a seat on the sofa, and Annie puts the glass in front of him, on a coaster, and sits across from him on a nice gray armchair.

“So tell me, how are you?” Annie says. “You look good.”

“Ah, don’t lie,” Jeff says. “I look terrible.”

“No, you don’t. Maybe a bit tired.”

“A bit is putting it lightly,” Jeff says, grinning. “You, though, you look lovely.”

“Thank you, Jeff,” Annie says. She smiles at him, looking genuinely happy to see him. “So, what are you doing now? Still teaching at Greendale?”

“Oh, no, Jesus Christ. I had to get away from there at some point.” Jeff clears his throat. “No, I’m teaching at Bergen Community College now. In, uh, New Jersey.”

“Oh! That’s not even that far away from here, right?”

“Exactly. And since I had no plans this weekend, y’know, I thought I’d come down here to see you. Abed gave me your address.”

“That’s amazing! How’d you end up in New Jersey?”

“I just kinda looked for other teaching gigs, I guess. It sorta worked out for me, you know? I’m not actually sure I could go back to being a lawyer. But teaching, that I can do. Only now that I’m not at Greendale anymore, I have to actually work, so that’s new.”

“Quite the transformation for you,” Annie says.

“I’ll say. What about you, though? I mean, you look great, you have this really nice place. Things must be looking great for you here.”

Annie smiles. “They do, actually. I’m about to enter the official trainee program in Quantico. I guess I’ll be staying here for a while.”

“Jesus, Annie, that’s amazing!”

“Thank you! It really is. Who would have thought that I could do that, right?” Annie smiles. “Little Annie Adderall…”

“I always knew you could do it,” Jeff immediately says. “I’m seriously proud of you.” Which is true. Jesus, it’s so true.

“Thank you, Jeff. Actually, I’m kinda proud of you, too,” Annie says, and Jeff blinks.

“What?”

“Well, you know. You easily could’ve gone back to being a sleazy lawyer, the kinda guy who’d do anything just to get his way with the least possible amount of effort involved… but you’re teaching! At a real school! Teaching is such an important job, and you’re actually making an effort, and that’s… amazing.”

Jeff sighs and looks at his glass of water, briefly wishing it was something alcoholic. “Well, don’t be too proud. I mean, trust me, I tried going back to practicing law. Remember my failed practice? That took a significant amount of wind out of my sails. And then… well, I just felt like I needed to leave Greendale, you know?” After you and Abed left, he doesn’t say. “Go somewhere else, do something different. And Bergen needed someone for the law department, so I talked to them and I got the job, and the only reason I’m still there is that I haven’t even had time to think about anything else.” Apart from seeing you.

“Or maybe you haven’t thought about anything else because you like it,” Annie proposes, but Jeff shakes his head, throat suddenly dry. He takes a big sip of water before slamming the glass on the table.

“No, I’m positive that’s not it.”

“Oh… okay?”

“I just… I just…” Annie’s a friend, Annie’s a friend, she’s your friend, Jeff keeps repeating to himself.

“Jeff, are you okay?”

“I just missed you so much,” Jeff blurts out. Annie nods, confused.

“Yeah, I missed you, too.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t try to text me or anything, did you?” Now he sounds like he’s angry at her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Well, I don’t see any texts from you in my inbox, do I,” Annie snaps back, smile gone. “Are you accusing me of something right now?”

“No, I—no. Annie. I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.” Jeff takes a deep breath.

“So make it come out right,” Annie says. “Because the way it came out just now, you’re saying I’m ignoring you because I’m a bad friend.”

“That’s really not what I meant to say.” Jeff sighs. “Let me start again. I missed you. I missed all of you, I missed the group, I mean, I miss the group, present tense. That’s why I needed to leave Greendale, because after you and Abed were gone, there was no group left, and I just couldn’t… I hated it, okay. I thought, I think, that it was great that you got to leave, to learn and expand and grow. But honestly, I have no more growing to do. And that’s why I basically only switched one community college for another, and a fake teaching job for a real one, but everything else stayed the same. All I thought about was…” You. “…the group.”

“Oh.”

Jeff doesn’t look at her when he says all this; he keeps his eyes strictly on the table.

“Yeah. Oh. And I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable reason for not contacting me, but I just honestly thought that if I kept away from you, I’d just at some point stop missing you, but apparently that’s not how it works.”

There’s a few seconds of terse silence before Annie says, “Jeff, look at me.” So he does.

“First off, I think you’re wrong,” Annie says kindly. “I think there is still room for growth within you—”

“The cancerous kind, maybe.”

“—and secondly, when you said, ‘if I kept away from you, I’d stop missing you,’ did you mean you’d stop missing the group?”

“I… yes.”

“Because I didn’t reach out to you for the same reason.” And that doesn’t make any sense because Annie has told him literally five minutes ago that she’s in regular contact with Troy and Abed, so what… what.

“What?”

“Well, you know I care about you. But I thought that it might be time to move on, so I did, I mean, that stupid crush I had on you never really went away and I thought, since it was never gonna go anywhere, I should just put some distance between the two of us, and, well…”

“…you did.” Jeff swallows. Maybe he shouldn’t have come.

“Yeah.” Annie clears her throat.

“Are you…” Jeff gestures around the apartment that is obviously too big for one FBI intern. “… living with anyone?”

“Yes.”

“A boyfriend?” Of course she does.

“…yes.”

“That’s… great.”

“Bill. We started out as roommates, it was supposed to be temporary, but… then it wasn’t.”

“Right.”

“He’s… nice.”

“So you like him?”

“I do.”

“Do you more than like him?”

“I… Jeff! It’s not fair. Why are you asking me all of this?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I do. And what about you, huh? Any girls on the side you keep disappointing?”

“None.” Jeff stares at her, his mouth set in a grim line.

Annie actually looks speechless for a second.

“None?”

“Not one since I left Colorado.” And it’s true. He’s considered it, taking his harmless coffee shop flirts further, but then it just seemed like too much of an effort. He’s just tired and he misses Annie.

“Yeah, right. Am I just supposed to believe that?”

“You do what you want, Annie.” Jeff pinches the bridge of his nose. Jesus, this visit was such an epic mistake. “I think I should leave now.”

Annie sits still like a statue. “Yeah.”

“It was really good to see you.”

“Yeah.”

Jeff gets up, walks over to the door. He has his hand on the handle when he hears Annie say, “Wait.”

He turns around. Annie is standing a few feet away, arms tightly crossed.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“You know what, Jeff. Why aren’t you sleeping around? It’s not like you. You’re not like you. What happened?”

He’s gone this far.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Jeff says. Saying this out loud, to her, feels like stepping off a ledge. Right at this moment, he feels like he could die. It’s a strange feeling, and he’s terrified.

Annie’s face contorts, and her eyes become glassy. “Really? Really, Jeff? After everything? Remember you and Britta wanted to get married? Remember you telling me you let me go?”

“Seriously, the Britta thing? You know it lasted for, like, half an hour! We thought the world was ending, that doesn’t count.”

“Jeff, I swear to God, if you’re playing games with me right now—”

“No games, Annie. No motivational speeches to spin my own truth. It’s just that. I miss you. I think about you. All the time. I guess the letting you go thing was a lie.”

“And you came here today because you thought what would happen, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff shrugs. He’s been at a complete loss for months now. That is a question for someone who knows where he is going, and that someone is not Jeff Winger. “I just needed to see you. I was hoping it would make me feel better, because I feel like shit, like, all the time now. I haven’t had a drink in weeks, cause at this point alcohol doesn’t really help me, either—”

“Jeff—”

“I didn’t think this through, Annie, okay? I didn’t think beyond you answering your door.”

“I… I have a life here. I have friends, I have a job. I have Bill.”

“I know. I’m happy for you,” Jeff says, and he thinks it might actually be true.

“You can’t just show up here, out of nowhere, and drop this on me!”

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

“No,” Annie says, and then suddenly she is standing directly in front of him, her chest almost touching his. She has to crane her neck to look up at his face, and Jeff can’t really breathe, not when she is looking at him like this.

“Do you mean it? Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

And then Annie is pulling his face down toward hers and she is kissing him and he is kissing her and what. What. What.


	2. Part 2

Part 2

That all happened five months ago. Now that Jeff has Annie, he has no idea how to handle it. After the first time, it wasn’t supposed to happen again.

(“I can’t do this to Bill. He deserves better. I won’t lie to him.”)

It was one moment of weakness for both of them, Jeff thinks, and it should stay that way. It wouldn’t really be fair to ruin future relationships for Annie.

(“He might break up with you.”

“Yes, he probably will.”

“Is that what you want?”

“What do you want, Jeff?”

Hell if Jeff knows.)

Annie tells Bill, and he breaks up with her, as she tells Jeff a week later when she visits him in New Jersey.

“He’s a nice guy, so he’s not kicking me out, but I do have to look for a new place now,” she says as they’re lying in Jeff’s bed, staring at the ceiling in a moment of post-coital intimacy.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Annie.”

“No, it’s fine. I never liked the place that much, and it’s weird to live with your ex.”

“Was it ever weird to be living with Troy?”

“Because I used to have a crush on him?”

“Yeah?”

“No, never. Mostly because Abed was always there and, well, you know how they are when they’re together. But also my crush on Troy had long since faded.”

“Well. You need any help apartment hunting, let me know.”

“Thanks. I might get back to you on that.”

Annie finds a new place to live, and in a kind of throwback move, she now lives again with two guys her age who are like brothers, only those two are actual biological brothers and work mostly nights, so that Annie barely ever gets to see them. They alternate visiting each other on weekends, they spend time with each other, and the pain in Jeff’s chest lessens significantly every time he sees her, until it’s barely existent. He’s not lonely anymore, and at some point one of his colleagues asks if he recently got over an illness because “you look so much healthier now.”

And all the time that passes between that first kiss and now, Jeff is still sure that Annie will leave once something better comes along. She has to, because clearly he’s not the right thing. He is old and phony, and she is young and earnest, and she’ll get sick of him eventually. That’s usually what happens if he attempts some sort of relationship.

Apparently, there’s still one giant chunk of Old Jeff left in New Jeff, which is his fear of commitment. So in the end, he still is one big old cliché.

“I hate that you’re making me turn back into control-freak Annie, but I want to know if this is a relationship.”

“I don’t… know, okay.”

“Do you not want this to be a relationship? It’s been five months, Jeff. Think of the time we’ve spent on the road just to be with each other. The mileage alone!”

“Annie…”

“If this is not a relationship, then I don’t know what is.”

“Do you really want us to be together?”

“Do you?”

“No, I’m serious. The only reason this happened is that Bill broke up with you and—”

“Wrong. The only reason this happened is because YOU showed up at MY door out of nowhere and told me you missed me so much it was basically destroying you. YOU came to ME.”

“But if Bill—”

“Bill didn’t break up with me, Jeff!”

“Wait, what?”

“I broke up with him, Jeff. I told him I had sex with someone else and that I wanted to break things off with him, and he accepted it. He was really hurt, but it was okay. Because we didn’t really love each other.”

“But you told me—”

“Oh, I know what I told you. Because I know you, Jeff Winger. If I’d told you that I broke up with my boyfriend to be with you, you’d run away faster than Abed from a screening of ‘Cop Rock.’”

Jeff wants to tell her she’s wrong, but he can’t really do that. So he ends up just staring at her.

“Jeff, please. Tell me something. Tell me where we’re at. I need to know, okay? I just do.”

“But…”

“You need to tell me right now what you want, or I’m leaving, and this time I’m not coming back.”

“Oh, so now you’re giving me the ‘all tomato,’ huh? Because you know how much everybody loves that.”

“You give me no choice!”

And just then his phone rings, and somehow it feels urgent, or maybe Jeff just wants to get out of this conversation, so he pulls it out of his pocket and looks at it. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“It’s Abed.”

“Fine.” Annie crosses her arms. “Answer it. But don’t think you’re getting away from this so easily.”

“Abed?”

“Am I interrupting an important conversation?”

“What? Why are you calling me?”

“Because phone calls informing someone about a sudden death are always most dramatic when they interrupt a tense conversation about personal issues. I never had the chance to be the guy to make that kind of call, so—”

“Abed?” Jeff interrupts him carefully. “Who died?”

Annie’s eyes become almost comically round.

“Oh, right. It’s Hickey.”

“Buzz Hickey,” Jeff says for Annie’s benefit, who sits down with a hand covering her mouth.

“Right. You’re invited to his funeral. The Dean couldn’t reach you, so he called me.”

“Yeah, I had to block Craig for, uh, sanity reasons.”

“Makes sense. Well, if you can make it, I emailed you the time and place of the funeral. You guys shared an office for a while, so I thought you’d want to come.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Jeff says, although he hates funerals and him and Hickey weren’t even that close. The old guy kind of gave Jeff the creeps, because here was a man who never put up with any bullshit from anyone and who could probably kill you with a pencil or something. But Abed will be there, and probably Troy and Britta, as well, and Annie? Probably.

“What happened?”

“He had a heart attack. Well, gotta go. I wanted to call you, Shirley, and Annie before I told Troy, because that’s gonna be a long call. You know how emotional Troy is.”

“Right,” Jeff says. “I’ll see you.”

“Bye,” Abed says and hangs up. Seconds later Annie’s phone rings.

“It’s Abed,” Jeff says. “You’re invited to Hickey’s funeral, he’s emailed you the details. But you don’t know that from me.”

And that is how Jeff gets away from having this conversation easily. All it cost was Buzz Hickey’s life.

***

They haven’t really had an opportunity to continue the all tomato talk. As angry as Annie is at him, she still agrees to book a flight with him, since they spend all their time together and they need to go to the same place at the same time, anyway. But all they do on their flight from Dulles to Denver is look away from each other, Annie probably being angry with Jeff for still being the same old Jeff Winger who will not commit to anything serious. Jeff is angry because of the ultimatum she has given him, and the fact that she thinks he hasn’t changed, and how fucking right she is about that. Mostly, though, he cannot bare to look at her because he’s afraid she’ll leave, while also thinking she probably should. It’s a mess.

The moment they enter the hotel where Abed, Troy, and Shirley will be staying, Jeff feels Abed’s inquiring eyes on them. Abed may not always be able to read faces, but he can be incredibly, inconveniently perceptive when he wants to be, and Jeff realizes that the moment he arrived with Annie, obviously having been on the same flight as her, he made himself a person of interest.

Shirley and Troy greet them with smiles and enthusiasm appropriate for the glum occasion.

“You look nice,” Shirley says after her initial greeting, and Jeff smiles.

“Well, you look positively gorgeous,” he says, and Shirley swats his arm.

“That’s nice,” she says. Jeez, did he miss hearing that.

Troy has a beard now, and he looks startlingly older, but then he hugs Jeff and does his special handshake with Abed, and suddenly it’s all the same, it’s like it was three years ago. Except then Abed looks at Jeff and then at Annie and then back at Jeff and something is happening with his eyebrows that Jeff doesn’t like at all. They go out to dinner and it’s all good, Jeff makes sure to sit between Shirley and Troy. They spend a pleasant evening and then retire to their own rooms and Jeff thinks about Annie when he falls asleep.

Putting on his black suit with a cotton shirt in a suitably mournful gray in the morning, Jeff remembers why he is back in Colorado. Buzz Hickey died. They may not have been friends, but they were colleagues for a while, and Hickey was a good guy. So Jeff tries to think a little less about Annie and himself, and a little more about Hickey. It’s not that easy when they’re sitting in the lobby, waiting for the Dean and Britta to arrive so they can go to the service together. Abed will NOT stop staring at them.

“Abed, stop staring. It’s rude.”

Annie shifts next to him, unaware of the attention.

“I know it’s considered rude,” Abed says. “I don’t know how to stare with subtlety.”

“So look at the floor,” Jeff says.

“Like you and Annie?” Abed looks between them. “Both of you were looking at the floor in favor of looking at anyone in the room, or at each other. I assumed that looking at the floor indicates either shyness connected to the inability to meet someone’s eye, or sadness. But there might be another possibility I didn’t factor in. When you spilled your secrets after we crashed with the hot air balloon in season 4, none of you would look at each other, either. Is that it? Are you embarrassed? Did you spill some secrets under the influence of psychotropic drugs again?”

“No, Abed,” Jeff says. He sighs heavily. “It’s just sadness.”

It’s not even a lie. Now that he thinks Annie may leave soon, he feels himself retreating into that dark state of mind he was in five months ago. She’s sitting not two feet away from him, and still he feels completely alone. Again. He needs a drink.

“This calls for a flashback,” Abed murmurs.

“What’d you say, buddy?” Troy says. Somehow he looks the most upset, even though he spent the least time with Hickey, but Troy just has a big heart. Jeff wonders how he manages to live with it.

“Flashback.”

Troy shrugs. “Sure.”

“Abed, what did we say about flashbacks?” Jeff says.

Abed sits still for a second, then nods. “Now we’re all caught up, I guess. Shirley’s coming.”

True enough, Shirley joins them in the lobby, giant purse today a deep black. Soon after, Britta and the Dean arrive, and the funeral passes in a blur. Both of Hickey’s sons say a few words. Jeff tries not to listen. It makes him think of his own father and how he would not know what to say for his father’s eulogy, not that he would have the desire to hold one. Or even be invited to the guy’s funeral. Suddenly the impact of what has happened hits him like a freight train: Hickey is dead, just dead, dead and gone, never to return again, and his eyes are burning and he can’t breathe—

Jeff bolts out of the church and stumbles on the lawn, sucking in a deep breath. He almost lost control in there. It can’t happen, not now, not like this. Hearing the sound of feet nearing him, he hastily wipes away some wayward tears before turning around. It’s Annie. Of course it has to be Annie.

“Jeff, are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Jeff clears his throat. He wants to say so many things, but nothing will come out. He can’t even meet her eye. What happened? They used to be able to tell each other everything.

“You’re sad,” Annie says. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “That’s good. Normal. You liked Hickey. You shared an office with him. He was a good guy. Of course you’d be sad.”

“Maybe.” Jeff feels like he’s shaking out of his own skin. It’s not even that cold. “You know what, I can’t do this right now.”

“What do you mean, you can’t do this?”

“I just hate funerals, okay?”

“Jeff!” Annie waves her hand around. “Everybody hates funerals! Liking them is not the point!”

“Annie—”

“You’re not here to enjoy yourself, you’re here because Hickey was our friend and we are saying good-bye to him!”

“I just can’t do this right now, okay?”

“You really are an egotistical son of a bitch, you know that?”

“Sometimes people need to look out for themselves, Annie.” Jeff sighs. “I really need to go.”

“So go,” Annie says, disdain dripping from her words, and stomps back to the chapel. Jeff swallows. He wants to take it back, go back to the chapel and stay, but he can’t. He remembers the way to the hotel, where a bottle of Jim Beam is resting on his night stand, waiting only for him. This is where he is headed now.

***

When Jeff wakes up in his cozy hotel bed, he hears Annie breathing next to him, and he sighs.

“Thanks for spending the night,” he says. “I just sleep better with you next to me.”

“That’s a nice thing to say, Jeff,” Abed says. “I can stay here for as long as you’d like.”

Jeff shoots up and almost falls out of bed. “Abed! What are you doing here?”

Abed looks at him from the other side of the hotel bed, in nothing but his tighty whities. “I don’t know, Jeff. Answer the phone.”

The phone rings. Jeff stands up and answers it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jeff,” Abed says. “Can I speak to Abed, please?”

“Tell him I’m not there,” Abed says from the bed.

“You want me to tell yourself that you can’t speak to yourself on the phone?”

“Yes. Please?”

“Uuuuh… Abed’s not here?”

“That’s fine. I actually wanted to talk to you.” It’s Annie.

“But I already told you I don’t know what to say,” Jeff says.

“You’re not getting out of this so easily.”

“I don’t wanna get out of this.”

“So don’t!”

“I don’t know how not to.”

“Jeff, I found the silver baby in the parking lot of Whole Foods wrapped in a Subway napkin and sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with it!”

Jeff hangs up the phone. “I’m dreaming this, right?”

“I’d say so,” Abed says. “I think the trope of a lead character experiencing a revelation through a dream sequence isn’t very original, but effective in an off-setting kind of way, especially because it circumvents extremely used-up storytelling methods for character development, such as voice-over, which is kind of the Jim Belushi of relaying a character’s thoughts.”

“Well,” Jeff says. “Glad you approve, I guess. You think I’m experiencing a revelation?”

“I think you’re in dire need of one. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Greendale.”

“Of course.”

Jeff can’t say how they end up at Greendale, but they do. They just suddenly find themselves in the Dean’s office, staring at the blank computer screen. It’s dark outside, and the light from the lamps seems dimmer than in the real world.

“Now what?” Jeff asks.

“Now, we walk,” Abed says. Jeff shrugs and starts walking.

Everything looks different. The school seems much bigger. They keep turning and walking through random hallways, and everything kind of looks the same and completely different. The building is empty.

“I don’t get it,” Jeff says. “Where are we even going?”

“That is entirely up to you,” Abed says.

“What’s the point of all of this? I want to just wake up.”

“But you can’t wake up yet, Jeff. You haven’t had one revelation.”

“That’s not my fault. If my subconscious wants me to understand something, it’s gonna have to try a lot harder because an empty Greendale and some dark hallways don’t tell me much at all.”

“Well, maybe they signify that something’s missing from your life?”

“What?” Jeff sighs. “Shut up, Abed. I need to figure out how to wake up and put an end to this insanity.”

“Like something very obvious is missing right now,” Abed says.

“And what would that be?” Jeff says. He lifts his hands and gestures toward Abed impatiently. “Nothing is missing. I mean, sure, I miss Greendale, and I could be happier, but if life was just about happiness, we wouldn’t have people working at the DMV. Sometimes life just sucks, Abed, okay? That’s how it’s supposed to—hey! Where the hell is my arm?!”

Jeff’s right arm is just gone. It was JUST there, but now it’s not. Jeff looks from the empty space where his arm should be to Abed.

“Abed! Explain!”

“Evil Jeff from the darkest timeline lost his arm to the fire, and he was so unhappy he had to turn evil in order to avoid turning insane. Maybe that’s where you’re headed.”

“I’m not headed for evil, Abed! Nor for insanity. I’m just unhappy. It happens.”

“I think you’re depressed, Jeff, and you deny yourself the things that could make you feel better. I think you’re a bit like House, MD, in that one episode where he’s being accused of wanting to stay depressed because he thinks it makes him special when actually it just makes him depressed. You’re even physically disabled now, like him. You’re not a doctor, though, so it’s already less impressive.”

“I’m not depressed. I’m also not disabled, because this is a dream and I’m imagining all of it.”

“Then why are you imagining me telling you why you’re imagining all of this? I think you need someone to explain it to you who’s not you because you can’t stand yourself. And sometimes people have described the loss of an important person in their lives as akin to the feeling of a missing limb. You miss having Annie in your life, Jeff.”

“I don’t have to miss having her in my life, because she’s already IN my life.”

“Is she really?”

“We’ve been sleeping together for months.”

“But have you really let her in? Or are you just waiting for her to move on to someone else because you can’t imagine she really wants to be with you, so you don’t allow yourself to admit that you love her in order to soften the blow you’re convinced she’ll deliver somewhere in the near future?”

“You know what?” Jeff says and points at Abed with the only hand available to him. “You may be a projection of my own mind, but fuck you.”

“I think it’s time you consider the possibility that this blow will never come, and that you’re instead hurting yourself, and Annie, by preparing yourself for it.”

“Shut up. If I can’t wake up from what is clearly a nightmare, then at least keep walking.”

“Jeff, there’s more to reveal still—”

“I don’t want to hear it. What are we doing now?”

They have arrived at a junction in the hallway. On both ends, there is a door.

“You have to decide where to go,” Abed says.

“Duh,” Jeff says. “I kind of figured that. But which way is the right way to go on?”

“Jeff, I’m not sure how to phrase this in a non-insulting manner, so I’m just gonna say it. I think you are dumb and you need to think more.”

“Hey! Stop insulting me, you’re me!”

Abed sighs. “This is a very obvious play on Robin Williams’s misuse of the famous Robert Frost quote in ‘Dead Poets Society.’ No matter what the poem actually means, when Robin Williams uses it in the movie, he says, ‘two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.’ And you like that movie even though you are embarrassed to admit it, and the scene where they all get on the tables and call him Captain makes you weep every time, so go by the misused quote, Jeff. You have to make the decision that’ll make all the difference.”

When Jeff looks at the doors again, both of them are labeled. One says, “Dead Poets Society,” the other one says, “No Country for Old Men.”

“I don’t get it,” Jeff says. Abed sighs.

“Jeff, let’s be honest. It makes life both easier and more difficult to not have to think about proper conduct, not of your own volition but simply because you’re incapable of it, like the real Abed. But I like to think it makes Abed’s life a lot easier than yours. Your entire being is based on what you think people think of you, from your wardrobe, to what you say, what you think, how you move, what car you drive, even the career you chose. Everything about you has been chosen for you by what you perceive to be other people’s expectations of your behavior.”

“Abed.” Jeff stares at him. “Stop giving me an insightful speech about my personality.”

“I suppose the meaning of all this is that, for once, you shouldn’t base your decisions on what you think other people think is right, and start thinking about what you think is right for you. That’s why there’s one door leading to a film you like but think you shouldn’t, and one leading to a movie you don’t like but think you should.”

“I hate ‘No Country for Old Men,’” Jeff says. “I just don’t get it. Why does his hair look that stupid?”

“I know,” Abed says. “So this dream is supposed to help you settle for something. You want Annie, but you think you’re not right for her, so you leave the both of you in a state of perpetual unknowing and it makes the both of you very unhappy. Choose a door, Jeff.”

“Right,” Jeff says. He looks from one door to the other.

“Choose the one less traveled by, because it makes all the difference.”

“Well,” Jeff says. He’s slightly tempted to try the “No Country for Old Men” door, just to see what Abed will do. But really, he hates that movie and Javier Bardem’s incredibly stupid haircut, so he knows which door is the right one. The right one, and the correct one, since “Dead Poets Society” is literally the door on the righthand side.

“Real subtle, subconscious,” Jeff says as he opens the door.

Suddenly him and Abed are standing in an enormous room stacked with television screens. There must be hundreds of screens. Jeff blinks trying to figure out what they are showing.

“This is the mind control facility,” Abed says. “These screens show all possible versions of you, Jeff. Your futures, reduced to images on a screen. You’re one of them, in this place where freedom means nothing. This is the operating system which monitors all of your emotions and perceived expectations you heave upon yourself. This system makes all of your choices for you.”

“Oh…kay…?”

Abed points to the end of the runway they are standing on. “See the big red button over there?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s check it out.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Big red buttons in a mind control facility? Seriously, Jeff, this is cartoon logic 101. The big red button is always important. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be big and red.”

“You got me there,” Jeff agrees. Their feet make clonking noises as they march down the metal runway toward the big red button. When there are just a few feet left, Jeff sees that the big red button is labeled “dismantle.” Next to it is a much smaller, blue button labeled “reconstruct.”

Jeff hums. “What do I do?”

“Dismantle it.”

“Maybe I don’t want to dismantle it, though.”

“Jeff—”

“Maybe I don’t wanna take the red pill, Abed, maybe I wanna take the blue pill. Have you ever considered that?”

“No, I haven’t,” Abed says. “That would be stupid. ‘The Matrix’ would have been over in half an hour if anyone had ever chosen the blue pill. That’s stupid and it’s not how this works.”

“Alright, alright, relax. Jeez.”

“Dismantle it, Jeff.”

“Seriously though, what if I don’t?”

“I think the whole place will blow up. You’re not supposed to seek more control, you’re supposed to let it go. Time doesn’t grow on trees, Jeff. Use it in a worthwhile fashion.”

Jeff presses the big red button then, no matter how much his hand is drawn toward the blue one. The runway shudders and sways as a dull grumbling echoes through the enormous room, and for a moment he isn’t sure he has not just made the biggest mistake of his life… until the console on which the buttons are installed swings backward, revealing another runway leading toward a sliding door. It has been slid open halfway, revealing sunshine and the sound of seagulls.

“Is this the way toward freedom?” Jeff asks.

“Maybe,” Abed says. “We’ll have to walk it to find out.”

When they step through the door, there is a sailboat waiting for them on what looks like a calm ocean. The sun is warm, there is a soft breeze blowing. In the distance, the sound of a speedboat.

Jeff can faintly hear seagulls, even though he can’t see any as the boat slowly drifts across the water. Mainly, he hears nothing but the wind and his own heartbeat. It’s beautiful. Peaceful. If this is what freedom feels like, it’s something he can get behind.

“Are we supposed to be steering?” Jeff asks eventually. He hates breaking the silence.

“I don’t think so. The boat knows the way.”

“Okay. Sure.” Jeff shrugs. This is a dream. What’s the worst that could happen?

“Have you ever gone sailing, Jeff?” Abed asks.

“No.”

“Have you ever wanted to?”

“Well, I remember my dad used to tell me about the sailboat he had as a teenager, and that he’d take me sailing one day. Didn’t happen, of course.”

“And you never thought about trying it after your dad left?”

“No. I completely forgot about it, to be honest.”

“Do you regret it?”

“What, never having tried sailing? No, I don’t. I mean, it is kinda nice here…” Jeff remembers the poem that started it all. In my dreams you walk dripping from a sea journey…

“I’m just asking because of this saying. You know, you regret the things you haven’t done more than the things you have, or words to that effect.”

“Oh yeah? Do you believe that?”

“I have to admit I never understood that saying,” Abed says. “My trouble with it is that every time you make the decision to do something, you automatically decide against doing something else you could have done, had you not decided to do something else instead. So every decision for something is also a decision against everything else you are not doing in that moment. According to the saying, then, our entire life is just a series of regrets for not having done something. Am I reading it wrong? Is the saying just concerned with the conscious decisions against doing something which then automatically infer a decision for doing something else, and I’m just thinking the wrong way around?”

“I don’t know, Abed,” Jeff says. “I think you’re making a lot of sense, though. I always thought this line was just an excuse for wannabe free-spirits who really want to do something stupid and don’t have any actual justification for it other than self-actualization. You know, like backpacking across Europe or some shit.”

“So you don’t believe in it?”

“No.”

“So you don’t think you’ll regret not telling Annie how you feel more than telling her?”

“Hey! Don’t change the subject. We were talking about sailing.”

“I guess the question would be, does deciding against telling Annie how you feel infer a decision for doing something else that’ll make you happier. But considering how you have been living your life for the past year, I’m relatively sure the answer is no. So you literally have nothing left to lose.”

“Shut up,” Jeff says, once again angry with Abed. “You’re ruining the sailing trip I’m dreaming ab—”

A crash, and the boat lurches to a halt with such abrupt force that Abed and Jeff are thrown forward, landing in a heap on the bottom of the boat.

“Ouch,” Jeff says, collecting himself. “What was that?”

“Sounded like the boat collided with something,” Abed says. “We should go check.”

“Right,” Jeff says, and then he looks. “Wait. What the hell?”

The boat’s bow has crashed into the horizon, which is a wall painted to look like the sky. A thin ledge running along the wall leads to a stairway, at the top of which is a door.

“Seriously?” Jeff asks.

“Oh yeah,” Abed murmurs, amazed. “We need to get off the boat.”

“Obviously,” Jeff sighs. They climb onto the ledge and shuffle toward the stairway, which is sky-blue like the rest of the wall. He tries the door handle; it wiggles, and the door opens to absolute darkness.

“This is where true freedom lies,” Abed says. “In the unknown.”

“Right,” Jeff says, but he can’t make himself step forward into the abyss of the unknown. Right at this moment, he feels like he could die. It’s a strange feeling, and he’s terrified.

Then, a voice sounds from the sky.

“Jeffrey. You can speak. I can hear you.”

The voice is deep, but unfamiliar. Jeff swallows.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the creator of the television show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions.”

“And who am I?”

“You’re the star.”

“Was nothing real?” Jeff asks, suddenly desperate. Is it really true what Dream-Abed said? That everything about him has been chosen for him by what he thinks to be other people’s expectations of him? Is it all a lie? And if so, how on earth is he supposed to let go of it? It’s all he’s ever known.

“You were real. It’s what made you so good to watch. Listen to me, Jeffrey. There’s no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in my world, you have nothing to fear.”

Nothing to fear. No real hurt, no real pain? Because Jeff has always been good at dealing with everything by himself. He was like that before Greendale, he can go back to it, surely. No lows anymore. But also no highs. No valleys, no peaks. Just flat, even earth.

“I know you better than you know yourself,” the voice then proposes, and Jeff frowns.

“You never had a camera in my head.”

“You’re afraid. That’s why you can’t leave. It’s okay, Jeffrey. I understand. I have been watching you your whole life.”

“Jeff,” Abed whispers while the voice keeps talking. “I really think we need to leave.”

“But the voice says I’ll be safe here,” Jeff argues. He really is afraid. He has no idea what awaits him on the other side of that door.

“You can’t leave, Jeffrey. You belong here. With me. Talk to me. Say something.”

“Jeff, you know how the movie ends,” Abed says sternly. “Truman leaves. He has to. He couldn’t stay when he knew it was a lie.”

“I wanna go back and push the blue button,” Jeff says, but Abed shakes his head.

“Too late for that.”

“Well, say something, goddamnit, you’re on television! You’re live to the whole world!” the voice says impatiently, and Jeff sighs.

“In case I don’t see ya: good afternoon, good evening, and good night.” Jeff bows deeply and follows Abed through the door.

“You did the right thing,” Abed says as they march through what seems to be a long, dimly lit tunnel. It is impossible to tell where the scant light is coming from that makes it possible to see where they are going; it seems to be in the air.

“Not so sure about that,” Jeff says as the Dean appears at the side of the tunnel, waving at a table.

“Hey guys,” he greets them. “I made a little space for the olives.” He points to a table behind himself where he has stacked several jars of olives.

“Right,” Jeff says.

“I wear the olives, the olives do not wear me.”

“Of course,” Jeff says and keeps walking, Abed walking behind him and humming happily. Soon enough, they leave the Dean behind, and on the other side of the tunnel, they pass a booth where someone is selling freshly caught fish. The fish are big, Jeff isn’t sure what kind, and covered in ice chips.

“Hey, Winger, how’s it going?” the middle one says. It’s Buzz Hickey.

“Good, I guess,” Jeff says. “Did you like your funeral?”

“Nah.”

“How much do you weigh?”

“Eight pounds.”

“Lost a lot of weight,” Jeff says.

“Swimming. The best exercise. Works every muscle.” The Hickey fish clears his throat. “Anyway, four dollars a pound, the guys next to me are asleep, whatever. I don’t care. Gotta go.”

“Alright, see ya,” Jeff says. They keep walking. Finally, they reach the end of the tunnel. Only, there is no exit. Just flat, black, stony wall. Jeff feels around in the near dark for a handle or a button or something, but there is nothing there.

“Abed,” Jeff says. The darkness feels like it is creeping in on him, pressing into him.

“Yes?”

“Why isn’t there a door here? I feel like there should be a door here.”

“You’re right. It’s the end of the tunnel, we should be getting through by now. I mean, you managed to let go of people’s expectations when making your decisions, right? That’s why we dismantled the mind control facility, and that’s why we re-enacted the ending of ‘The Truman Show.’ Maybe there’s still something you need to acknowledge before you’re able to move on.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, remember when we talked about the sailing trip with your dad that never happened?”

“Yes,” Jeff grits out. “Because he left. I have daddy issues, I’m aware of that. What on earth has this got to do with anything?”

“You’re sad he left.”

“Of course I am, I was a goddamned kid and he abandoned me.”

“I think you would have enjoyed sailing, but you never wanted to try it because it always reminded you of your dad and his broken promises.”

“Abed.” Jeff pinches the bridge of his nose. “Get to the fucking point.”

“You said you forgot about the sailing trip, but that was a lie, you never did. You never wanted to try it because you were afraid of the bad memories that would resurface. You avoided doing something because you were afraid of the consequences, consequences that would reconnect you to pain you’ve experienced in the past. Don’t avoid doing things that might be good for you because you’re convinced they’ll end badly. The past is in the past, and history may be doomed to repeat itself, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your history will, too. You do have a semblance of control over your life. Use it.”

Then Abed uses his hands, and Jeff realizes he’s saying something in sign language.

“What are you saying?”

“When is a door not a door, Jeff?”

“When it’s… ajar,” Jeff says. A door is there, then, slightly ajar, allowing a thin ray of light to escape into the darkness of the tunnel. He opens it and steps through, and of course he’s in the study room. He can see through the blinds that there is a commotion outside in the hall, so he goes to check and sees that someone has organized a bake sale. On several long tables, all of the things he has never allowed himself to enjoy are presented in a particularly appetizing fashion: cheese cake, red velvet, chocolate blackout cake, chocolate macaroon cake, Devil’s food cake, Angel food cake, caramel cake, and carrot cake, triple chocolate muffins, yellow cake, almond tarte, and so on and so forth. Jeff has always watched his calorie intake, has always seen food as a challenge and not as something to be enjoyed. This metaphor seems really obvious, and he’s not impressed.

“Fine,” he says into the room, as none of the faceless people surrounding him seem to take notice of his presence. “It’s just a dream, right? I’ll have some cake.”

He easily elbows his way to the front, where someone has set up a barrier with a rope to keep the mass of people away from the cake display until it has been properly set up. People are grinding their heels into the ground to make sure they are the first to get their cake, and Jeff crosses his arms, because this is his dream and he will get some of that cake and eat it.

Then the rope is removed, the barrier is opened, and people are rushing in, pushing Jeff further back, and before he knows it, he’s one of the last people to reach the first table. He’s already frustrated, and when he finally reaches the table with the Devil’s food cake, he realizes he doesn’t have a plate or a fork, so he has to go back to the front and get a plate, and it’s difficult to handle both plate and fork with only one hand, seeing as his right arm is still at large. When he finally gets back to the cake display, there is barely anything left. Jeff feels his hand shake in anger and disappointment.

“What the hell?” he says. “This is my fucking dream. Why can’t I get some damn cake?”

Grudgingly he loads two slices of almond tarte on his plate and returns to the study room. Annie is standing by one of the shelves in the hall, and he smiles at her and wants to say something, but can’t. He can’t even meet her eye. Frustrated beyond belief, Jeff pushes open the door to the study room and slumps into his seat at the table, nodding to Hickey seated across from him.

“Winger,” Hickey says. He’s not eating cake, Jeff realizes.

“Hickey,” Jeff greets him. “Not a fish anymore, I see.”

“Nope. You don’t like what’s on your plate?”

Jeff picks at the almond tarte. “Not really.”

“Why not?”

“Cause it’s not what I wanted.”

“What’s the problem with it?”

“I just wanted more.”

“Then go get some more,” Hickey shrugs. “There’s always the second serving.”

“Right,” Jeff says and gets up. He leaves the plate on the table and grabs a new one when he gets to the cakes. Hickey is right: a new wave of fresh cakes has been served, and now there are barely any people left. Most of them already got their fill. Jeff looks from the cheese cake to the Devil’s food, to the red velvet and the muffins, and suddenly he’s paralyzed. What does he want? Which one should he choose? A second wave of people is approaching, and the selection of desserts available to him won’t stay this huge for long. He needs to choose now, but he can’t. He needs to know which cake will taste the best, and he needs to choose now, but—but—

“I can’t do this,” he says.

Annie is still standing by the shelf near the study room, and she looks at him with a frown. “What do you mean, you can’t do this?”

“I… I can’t choose. It’s too much.”

“You said you wanted more.”

“But this is… it’s too much.” He takes a deep breath. “I really should go.”

“So go,” Annie snaps, and Jeff runs into the study room, which begins crumbling around him.

“I did go,” he says. “I thought maybe you were too young for me, too good. But you were perfect.”

“I wish you’d stayed,” Annie says from somewhere. The walls crumble to nothingness, and he sits at the table, looking to Annie’s empty seat.

“I wish I’d stayed, too. Now I wish I’d stayed. I wish I’d done a lot of things. I wish I’d… I wish I’d stayed. I do.”

“When I turned around, you were gone.”

The windows break, showering Jeff with glass shards.

“I walked out! I walked out the door.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I felt like a scared little kid, I was like, in above my head, I don’t know.” The edges of the table begin dissolving into ashes. Jeff holds on for dear life.

“You were scared?”

“Yeah. Thought you knew that about me. I ran back to the study room, trying to outrun my humiliation, I think.”

“Was it something I said?”

“Yeah. You said, ‘so go.’ With such disdain, you know?”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Annie says from somewhere, it might as well be Jeff’s own head. This doesn’t feel like a dream anymore, he thinks, it’s too real.

“It’s okay.”

“Jeff? What if you stayed this time?”

“Yeah,” Jeff murmurs as the study room table dissolves, leaving him with nothing but ashes in his hands. “What if I do stay this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream sequence includes references to and/or quotes from:  
> House, MD  
> The Stanley Parable  
> Dead Poets Society  
> No Country for Old Men  
> The Matrix  
> Monkey Beach  
> The Truman Show  
> Buffy the Vampire Slayer  
> Teen Wolf  
> Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  
> and inevitably, The Sopranos.


	3. Part 3

Part 3

Jeff wakes up with a start and for a few seconds, he has no idea where he is and when and why. Was it really all a dream? It had felt so real, especially in the end. He can still feel the study room table dissolve into ashes beneath his fingers.

“Jeff? What if you stayed this time?”

Annie’s voice echoes through his head.

What if he did, indeed?

Jeff attempts to unravel all of the messages his dream has forced upon him while sitting up. He sees the bottle of bourbon on his night table, still open. Did he drink himself to sleep? He’s sweating. With shaking hands, Jeff takes off his shirt and toes off his socks, realizing he is still in his funeral clothing. He came straight here from the chapel, he remembers that. He opened the bottle, he started drinking.

Stop trying to control everything. Tell Annie how you feel. Something is missing from your life and you have literally nothing to lose.

“Don’t avoid doing things that might be good for you because you’re convinced they’ll end badly. The past is in the past, and history may be doomed to repeat itself, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your history will, too. You do have a semblance of control over your life. Use it.”

Dream-Abed had some serious wisdom to dish out. Jeff wonders at his own subconscious, but then again, stranger things have happened. And if his subconscious should take a human form other than himself because apparently he hates himself too much to buy his own explanations, no one but Abed would ever qualify.

Jeff then looks out of the window and realizes that the sun is shining. The clock on the nightstand tells him it is 4 pm. He didn’t drink himself into a stupor and sleep away the day, he only finished a finger of bourbon and then slept for a few hours. It’s no wonder, he’s so tired all the time. He had been so tired he simply slept through his desire to get drunk and forget about Annie and Hickey and the funeral and everything. He didn’t get drunk, and he certainly, obviously, definitely didn’t forget.

There is a knock on his door, and Jeff jumps about a foot in the air.

“Jeff? Are you okay in there?”

And it’s Annie. Of COURSE it is.

“You left in a rush and you were obviously upset, so… guess I just wanted to check—”

Jeff stumbles over to the door and rips it open so abruptly Annie actually shrieks in surprise.

“Jesus!”

“Sorry. Hey.” Jeff blinks owlishly, still waking up from his nap that may not have been more than four hours but truthfully felt like four years, with all the things that happened.

“You scared the life out of me,” Annie says, a hand on her chest. She sighs. “Are you okay? You look… exhausted.”

“I am. Exhausted, I mean. But I’m also okay. Can you come in for a second? We need to talk.”

“Okay, I guess,” Annie says, suspicion clear on her face.

Once Jeff has closed the door behind himself, he turns and sees Annie surveying the rumpled sheets on the bed and the disheveled mess of his suit jacket and shirt on the floor. Jeff usually treats his clothing with a lot more care, so she must be quite confused.

“Were you sleeping the entire time?”

“Yes, and something—”

“Were you drinking?” Annie points at the open bourbon bottle accusatorily.

“Only a sip, I swear.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I’m serious! Annie, I swear. I mean, I wanted to get drunk, obviously, but then I just didn’t. I didn’t. Honestly.”

“Okay,” Annie says. She crosses her arms, still obviously not completely convinced, but Jeff is glad she is at least still here and looking at him. Annie’s eyes on him feel good, and it reminds him why he needs to tell her this. In the soft sunlight, she is the most magnificent sight he has ever laid eyes on. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I, uh—”

“Everybody else was quite disappointed that you just took off, by the way. We were hoping you’d say a few words.”

“Oh, Annie.” Jeff sighs. “I wouldn’t have known where to begin. What to say. I would’ve just cobbled together some bullshit as always. Hickey deserved better than that.”

Annie frowns. “That sounds… reasonable.”

“Yeah. See? I can be reasonable. I am being reasonable.”

“Running away from your colleague’s funeral wasn’t the most reasonable thing you could have done.” Annie’s eyes soften. “Why did you run, Jeff? What happened? You looked like you were in the middle of a panic attack. I know what those look like, trust me.”

Jeff shrugs and rubs the back of his head. “I guess it just made me think of my own dad when Hickey’s sons talked about him… I mean, he wasn’t the best dad, but he was there, y’know? And they knew him and they had things to say about him, and I, uh… I don’t, right? It’s like there’s a whole chunk of my life that’s missing where others have experiences and stuff, and memories, where I just draw a complete blank. And then that reminded me of all the other things that are missing from my life, and I guess it sorta spiraled out of control from there.”

Jeff feels his right arm. Yes, it is there. It’s right where it belongs.

“I’m sorry about that,” Annie says. “You could have told me, I would’ve understood. There are things missing from my life, too.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m trying to tell you now. Listen, I realized a few things while I was asleep and I just think it’s time I… did some things. Like eat my cake.”

“Your… cake?” Annie looks at him like he has gone insane. “Ew. Jeff.”

“No, no, that came out wrong. Listen, I had a dream.”

“You did, huh?”

“Yeah, and I understand now, okay. Dream-Abed explained it to me, like, a million times. I’ve been too afraid this whole time. Of everything. Of what people think, of what happens to me once I stop worrying about what people think, but mostly I’ve been too scared of you.”

“Scared of me?”

“Yes.” Jeff swallows. “I thought you knew that about me.” Right at this moment, he feels like he could die. It’s a strange feeling, but he’s not terrified anymore.

“I was scared you wouldn’t want me, and then I was scared you’d leave the second someone better came along, someone who fits you better, because, let’s face it, I’m too old and too much of a phony to be good for you. No, let me finish. I thought that, the second I commit to this… thing between us, you’ll run off with someone your age, someone who shares your passions, and I wouldn’t even blame you. So I just decided I wouldn’t commit to it, to us, and it was stupid, I was stupid, I AM stupid, and I love you, Annie Edison, I love you, I love you so much it’s actually kind of embarrassing, and I want to be with you and I can’t imagine NOT being with you, and—”

“Jeff, Jesus Christ,” Annie interrupts him. “Slow down.”

“But that’s the point, I don’t wanna slow down anymore, I’ve been too slow this entire time. It started when we kissed for the first time that night of the Transfer Dance, and I’ve been kidding myself about it the whole time.”

“Things would have to change, Jeff. We can’t just continue what we’ve been doing for the last five months. I can’t just take your word for it. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Are you kidding me? Things have already changed. I’ve said goodbye to Greendale, and now I’m not afraid to say it. Annie, I LOVE you. Capital L-O-V-E. I want everything with you. I want a future with you. I need you in my life or I’ll fucking die.”

“I…” Annie clears her throat. Her big eyes look even bigger with a few unshed tears in them. “I want a future with you, too.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” Annie says. “I do.”

And that’s that.

Later, they lie in bed together, and Jeff says it again, just to test it on his tongue.

“I love you, Annie Edison.”

“I love you, Jeff Winger,” she says like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“M’lady.”

“M’lord.”

***

They meet the study group in the hotel lobby that night for a farewell dinner, and of course everybody immediately knows. And Jeff? He doesn’t even care because he doesn’t need to. He’s got Annie. The rest is silence.

Abed approaches him after dinner, when they are standing in the parking lot waiting for Britta’s dad to pick her up.

“I’m glad you and Annie are happy now,” he says, and Jeff smiles.

“Thank you, Abed.”

“I’m sure you had doubts. What changed your mind?”

“Well, it might surprise you, but I had a dream about the whole thing and it cleared everything up for me in a spectacularly meta fashion.”

“It doesn’t really surprise me,” Abed says. “I think the trope of a lead character experiencing a revelation through a dream sequence isn’t very original, but effective in an off-setting kind of way, especially because it circumvents extremely used-up storytelling methods for character development, such as voice-over, which is kind of the Jim Belushi of relaying a character’s thoughts.”

“Huh,” Jeff says. “My dream version of you said the exact same thing. Guess I know you a lot better than I thought.”

“I was in your dream?”

“You were the main component, man. You helped me figure it all out.”

“Cool,” Abed says. “Cool, cool, cool.”

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the first conception of the idea, until I typed the last word, this story was about eight years in the making. I have to admit I'm quite proud of how it turned out.  
> Anyway, hope you liked, thanks for reading.  
> #sixseasonsandamovie  
> Pop pop!


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